


Among the Green Hills

by LectorEl



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, But what else is new?, Gen, Janet and motherhood are always a scary combo, Janet is scary as fuck, Soul Magic, oh my, shifters and vampires and witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black magic and new beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among the Green Hills

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Thrall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/733953) by [heartslogos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos). 



> …Really, I am so sorry Hearts. It’s just that your verses are really good for curing writer’s block. Inspired by ‘Thrall' and 'To En-' but can stand alone. Those two fics (Besides being awesome) just add delicious sub-text to this.

_(The first thing you need to know to understand, is that witches are just as fiercely and irrationally possessive as vampires. The second is that while not infertile, no witch or familiar can conceive a child with a soul. The body will form, but it will come into the world unstirring, and pass into death soon after._

_The third thing you need to know is that Timothy Jackson Drake is the biological child of Janet Lynn Drake and Jack Adrian Drake, a witch and her familiar._

_Witches love harshly, with destructive and unceasing force. A witch’s love can be as ruinous as their hate. When Janet first saw the gentle swell of her stomach, the curve that revealed the child she would bare, she loved. Loved with the force of a witch, loved the empty shell that would come._

_Her familiar, her husband, was a were-coyote, and if he were not, perhaps events would have gone differently. But coyotes are pair hunters, not pack creatures as wolves are, and it was unthinkable to allow his offspring to die._

_Souls, as every witch knows, are real things. If one is willing to transgress laws of both nature and civilization, they are things that can be stolen.)_

Tim was born during the last hour of sunlight on midsummer’s eve. His mother kisses his brow, hands shaking, and whispers, “You are Timothy, my son.”

His father takes him and tucks him against his own breast, rumbling a soft churr. “Our pup,” he says, smiling at his wife. She nods, eyes sliding shut.

“Ours, yes,” she slurs as she drops into sleep.

The first time Tim obeys his mother without protest or question, she hits the back of his hand with a ruler so hard it bleeds. He still has the scar.

That’s how he was raised, salt in his tea and puzzles in the place of locks. His mother raises him to doubt. She teaches him to never obey, to look askance at anyone who expects him to. To live for himself and not another’s approval.

He doesn’t know if he likes her, but he loves her. The one thing he knows for certain is that she loves him, after all. His mother wouldn’t bother making the effort if she didn’t.

“You are Timothy, and you are your own person,” Mother told him once, hooking her fingers under his chin and looking him in the eye. “Not anyone’s servant, or familiar, or thrall, and I will not allow you to be so.”

_(He doesn’t know yet, what his mother had done. He doesn’t know that she stole a soul from its resting place, and bound it to the body growing in her womb. He doesn’t know how she and his father walked the graveyards and the crypts of the city, sneaking into places they were not allowed, to find a soul that suited. Or how she took his father’s hand, and pressed one palm to the vault door of the Wayne family crypt. How they stepped into the shadow cast across the door, and walked inside._

_He doesn’t know what his parents gave up to have him, forsaking all welcome among the witches, and making an enemy for eternity of the Waynes, the vampire clan that ruled Gotham. He doesn’t know that she and his father can never go home. He doesn’t know that their endless absences are because they need to draw away the hunters that chase her for monstrous act._

_Not yet.)_

He grows, in the wide walls of their country home and the endless hills that surround them. Face tilted up into the wind, running and tumbling and playing with the fae folk who emerge from the green. He plants his garden behind the house, planting seeds and cuttings he takes from the woods amongst his vegetables and roses.

He’s happy. Happy rambling alone while his parents are away, and happy matching wits with his mother and wrestling with his father while they’re home. He thrives, all coltish limbs and boundless energy, bubbling enthusiasm for life making it impossible to stay sitting.

The only time he can stand be still and silent is when he stalks his father, trying to fool the were-coyote’s nose. He never wins, but he’s getting better.

“That’s my clever boy,” Jack cooes, ruffling Tim’s hair. Janet smiles from the doorway, proud and wistful both.

“You are,” she agrees. “Clever, that is. And intelligent besides.”

Tim ducks his head, smiling. “I know. Thank you, mother.”

“Don’t thank me for your own accomplishments,” his mother chides, but her eyes crinkle with her smile.

The year he turns fourteen, his parents give him two gifts. One, a silver-edged knife, for the summer solstice. The other, an uncut moonstone the size of a sparrow’s egg, for his birthday.

“Something’s happening, isn’t it?” Tim asks. His father nods, squeezing his mother’s hand.

“I’ve had strange dreams, Timothy. Perhaps they don’t mean what I think they do, but…” she shakes her head. “It’s best to be prepared. Take care while we’re away. The moonstone should hide you from uninvited attention, if danger comes calling. Keep it close.”

They leave the day after midsummer, and Tim bids them goodbye with hidden worry. His garden feeds him, and he know enough of hunting to kill rabbits and squirrels. The fae folk keep him company. The house shelters him. He wants for nothing but his parents’ company.

_(Far away, in a place Tim has never seen, his parents swallow poison, taking the secret of what they’d done to their grave.)_

Months pass, summer to fall to winter to spring to summer again. Tim turns fifteen, and the ward start to weaken. He casts his eyes to the hills, and worries, knife and stone always at hand. They’ve never been gone this long before.

It’s late autumn when the wards fall. Tim wakes, shuddering, feeling like he’s been flayed. He rises from his bed, knife in hand, and creeps downstairs, where he hears voices.

“So this is where they were hiding all these years,” a man says, sounding irritated. “Wouldn’t have taken them for fans of rural life.”

“I don’t really care what they were fans of, demon,” another says, voice tired and angry.

“No one asked you, Todd.”

Tim coughs pointedly, leaning on the balustrade overlooking the entrance hall. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my home?”

They look up at him, and blanch. The taller man, with a shock of white hair in his bangs, recovers first.

“Tim?”


End file.
